MacMost: Photos

When using smart folders or albums it is important to realize what they are. Items are not "in" a smart folder or album. They are simply the results of a search. The items remain where they were. You can't delete items from a smart folder or album because that wouldn't make sense.

If you aren't using the Photos app, check out these 10 reasons to give it a try. Often when someone avoids using an app like Photos it is because of misconceptions or not realizing that the app has evolved since they last tried it.

It is easy to accidentally send a photo or screenshot shrunk down too small to be useful to the recipient. Always check this setting before hitting Send.

Using the Retouch tool in Mac Photos you can erase marks and blemishes and also repair damage to photos.

The Copy Subject tool in macOS lets you lift the subject from the background of a photo or remove the background and leave the subject. You can use this to do a variety of things like make social media profile pictures, Contacts images, iMovie overlays, better presentation backgrounds and more.

Learn how to use the cropping tools in the Photos app. You can crop to any part of the photo, or stick with specific aspect ratios. You can also rotate and adjust the perspective of a photo.

A new feature in macOS Ventura is the ability to copy the subject from an image or remove the background. You can use this in many different apps in a variety of ways. Learn how to make clean Contacts and social media pictures, replace the background of an image, create folder icons, and much more.

Apple added a whole bunch of new features in the Mac Photos app with macOS Ventura. Learn how to find duplicates, remove the background, copy and paste adjustments and much more.

You can now have a shared photo library between you and other members of your family. Each person can edit and manage the photos in the library and you can view photos in it alongside photos in your own personal library.

Live Photos are more than just a bit of video attached to your pictures. You can use them to create loops, long exposures and pick a perfect frame when your subject won't stay still.

While Photos has a lot of adjustment and cropping tools, you can also use your favorite image editor directly with the Photos app. You can choose to edit the photo in an editor and have the results saved back to your library, or you can use an editing extension for even tighter integration. See examples using Affinity Photo and Pixelmator Pro.

A new feature in iOS 16 is the ability to easily select only the subject of a photo and drag it to another app or copy and paste it. You can use this to send just the subject of a photo without the background in a message or place it in a layer of an image editing app.

A new feature in iOS 16 for the iPhone allows you to see duplicates in your Photos library and delete or merge them. This same feature is coming to iPadOS 16 and also macOS Ventura.

Often people ask me about duplicate photos or files when all they are seeing is two different ways of viewing the same single photo or file. For instance, albums in Photos show the same photos as the Library, and Recents and the Desktop in the Finder show files you can also see elsewhere. It is important to understand why these aren't duplicate items to avoid deleting the one and only copy of a photo or file.

Photos will easily mark pictures as containing people's faces, as long as they are human. But you can also manually add your pets or anything you like to the People feature manually.

Learn the various ways you can export files from the Photos app on your Mac. You can do a simple drag-and-drop, but you'll get more options if you use File, Export. You can also export directly to another app, or save as a PDF.

The Photos app gives you many ways to search through your photos. You can look by person, dates, locations, objects, titles, camera type and so much more. You can also combine these in ways to get interesting results.

When dealing with image files on your Mac, it is useful to know the difference between JPEG and GIF files, what HEIC or HEIF files are, what RAW means, and when to use a PNG file.

Perhaps the most creative tool in the Photos app is the ability to use Markup tools directly on photos. You can add text, shapes and draw. Here ate 10 creative ways to use Markup on your photos.

You probably have dozens or hundreds of photos in your Photos Librar you can use as social media profile pictures. Learn how to easily find the best ones, crop, adjust and apply filters, and create great social media profile pictures that are ready to use.